Human Rights and Conflict Transformation

Handbook Dialogue No. 9

What are the potential – and limits – of bringing together human rights and conflict transformation in specific contexts? Going beyond the divide and polarising language of "peace versus justice", the authors argue that a more thorough emphasis on human rights – as causes and manifestation of conflicts, but also as normative and practical intervention tools – contributes to bringing conflict transformation closer to its aim of tackling conflicts at their deepest roots. The lead author and respondents engage in a rich dialogue on areas of tensions as well as complementarity between the two sets of practices: they encourage mutual learning and joint work, and stress the importance of locally-designed, timely and context-specific initiatives, as well as the hard-nosed analysis of political context and use of human rights and conflict transformation discourse. Evidence comes from contexts such as Nepal, South Africa, Israel/Palestine, Uganda and Colombia.